The Politically Incorrect Show - 17/05/2001

[Music - Die Fledermaus]

Good afternoon, Kaya Oraaa & welcome to the Politically Incorrect Show on the free speech network, Radio Pacific, for Thursday May 17, proudly sponsored by Neanderton Nicotine Ltd., the show that says bugger the politicians & bureaucrats & all the other bossyboot busybodies who try to run our lives with our money; that stands tall for free enterprise, achievement, profit, & excellence, against the state-worshippers in our midst; that stands above all for the most sacred thing in the universe, the liberty of the human individual.

[Music up, music down!]

What a joy it was to have Dame Malvina Major & Tim Beveridge in the studio with me yesterday. Perhaps it's presumptuous of me to say so, but I'm going to say it anyway - they're my kind of people. Sense-of-life kinds of people. Sometimes being on the receiving end of talkback calls leaves me drained from the impression that the country is full of people who think the world should come to them. These are two people who don't think that & have never thought that. In Malvina's case she has spent years perfecting her talent & hustling to make sure it gets heard. In Tim's case, he has barely started out, but I'm sure he has a golden future - though not a full-fledged opera singer like Malvina, his natural talent, his infectious enjoyment of his music & his determination to make a go of it should ensure that. In any event, it certainly lifted MY spirits to have them here yesterday. And some of yours too, obviously - for awaiting me when I got home was the following e-mail:

"What an excellent chat today with Malvina. Just have to tell of my first encounter with her about 1980. We were playing at a Golf Club Cabaret (booze-up) in a little place called Pungarehu (out near the pointy bit of Taranaki). It had started off as a fairly lively evening but then came the prize giving. As usual everyone, sitting around quietly for speeches, glasses getting empty and the bar closed 'while the official bit is on' sobered up and became relatively lifeless. When that part was over, the crowd were quite happy to make up for lost time and sit at their tables around the hall and drink their booze instead of dancing. We were playing an instrumental version of a thing called 'Oh Lonesome Me,' a reasonably lively country tune. All of a sudden a lady in evening dress ran up through the centre of the empty dance floor, leapt three feet into the air and landed on the stage, grabbed the microphone and burst into song, leaping around the stage at the same time. She was magic; she was amazing; she was Malvina.

"Unlike Kiri who sounds like an opera singer even when singing show tunes, Malvina can switch styles and perform like a totally different person at will. She truly doesn't get the accolades she deserves in NZ, but then that doesn't seem to worry her - she is just one lovely lady."

I guess it's true that, government-bestowed damehood notwithstanding, Malvina doesn't get the accolades she deserves in New Zealand, so I'm going to bestow one on her now - for her accomplishments in the world of music, for her guts & perseverance through periods of sadness & tribulation, for her radiant, contagious sense of life: to Dame Malvina Major, the Free Radical Award.

(FreeRad Award.)

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